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James Ford Rhodes (1848–1927). History of the Civil War, 1861–1865. 1917.

Page 346

  the men was put into envelopes as the best manner of its distribution.  5     For a year, from July, 1862 to July, 1863, the people of the North suffered the bitterness of defeat. McClellan’s failure on the Peninsula, Pope’s defeat at the second battle of Bull Run, Burnside’s disaster of Fredericksburg, Hooker’s overthrow at Chancellorsville, only slightly relieved by the partial victories of Antietam and Stone’s river, were a succession of calamities, the cumulative force of which would have broken the spirit of any except a resolute people who believed that their cause was just. “Sumner comes to dinner,” wrote Longfellow in his journal. 1 “He is very gloomy and desponding; and sighs out every now and then, ‘Poor country! poor, poor country!’” During the dark days, when after some bloody reverse of our armies, Phillips Brooks met a friend on a street corner, he could only wring his hand and say, “Isn’t it horrible?” and gloomily pass on. People who took counsel of their meaner fears cried for peace at any price. During that year social clubs ceased to meet. Men when they heard of a disaster would give up some festive entertainment, would forego even a quiet evening at cards. They had no disposition for mirth. Their hearts were with their dead and wounded fellow citizens on the Southern battle-field; they sat in quiet and brooded over their country’s reverses. “No thoughtful American opened his morning paper without dreading to find that he had no longer a country to love and honor.” 2  6   It is a striking fact that during this period of gloom, in the autumn of 1862, a revival of business began. From that time until the end of the war trade was active, factories busy, labor constantly employed and failures remarkably
 
Note 1. Sept. 14, 1862. [back]
Note 2. Lowell. [back]